Bulldogs Win Johnson Cup For Second Straight Year

Mar 29, 2009

March 29, 2009

PRINCETON, N.J. -
The Y150 squad kicked off its spring season with a bang on Saturday, besting Navy in four of five races to bring home the Johnson Cup for the second straight year. The Johnson Cup race took place at the neutral site of Lake Carnegie, at Princeton. This year was the sixth since the inception of the race and the victory makes the Bulldogs' overall Johnson Cup series record 3-3. All three of the lightweights Johnson Cup victories have come in the last four years.

In the previous five years that the Johnson Cup race against Navy had existed, no Yale squad had won both the varsity and second varsity races, four out of five races, or two years in a row. However, all three of these statistics were invalidated by the end of the day on Saturday. The dual race began with a decisive Navy win in the second freshman race. However, the Y150 squad picked up its game after the first race, and followed up with victories in the third varsity, first freshman, second varsity and first varsity races.

Navy is one of the Elis' biggest rivals, year in, year out. Although the lightweights were able to defeat Navy for the Johnson Cup last year, the Midshipmen edged out the Bulldogs at the IRA National Championships last June. At that event, Navy took home the silver, while Yale won the bronze medal.

The results from Saturday indicated that this rivalry will continue to be fiercely competitive this season as well. The top three Yale boats -- first varsity, second varsity and first freshman -- all won by margins of less than four seconds. Meanwhile the Yale third varsity boat won by a margin of 8.5 seconds and the second freshman boat lost by 23 seconds.